Video art

Video art is an art form that uses video technology as a visual and audiovisual medium. It emerged as a distinct artistic practice in the mid-1960s, when portable video-recording equipment such as the Portapak became available on the consumer market, allowing artists to work outside professional television studios. Video art can take many forms, including single-channel works, television broadcasts, installations, video sculpture and performances incorporating live or recorded images and sound. Works may be displayed on video monitors, projected in galleries or museums, broadcast on television, or distributed through recorded and digital media. Early video art developed around analog videotape, closed-circuit television, monitors and other electronic display technologies. As recording and display technologies evolved, artists increasingly incorporated digital technologies into video and other forms of media art. Video art frequently departs from the conventions of theatrical cinema and may dispense with actors, dialogue, narrative or plot. Its history nevertheless overlaps with avant-garde and experimental film, as well as television, performance and installation art. Nam June Paik, a Korean-American artist who studied in Germany, is widely regarded as a pioneer in video art. In March 1963 Paik showed at the Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal the Exposition of Music – Electronic Television.